


Saturday Morning (New York Time)

by chameleonCharisma



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6630097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chameleonCharisma/pseuds/chameleonCharisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not a panic attack. You are not having a panic attack over a fucking bad dream; you are keeping a perfectly normal tactical watch over the Lalonde family’s guest bedroom.</p>
<p>You are <i>so</i> having a panic attack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saturday Morning (New York Time)

**Author's Note:**

> While it can stand on its own, this belongs to the same continuity as my other works, and is set pre-Alien Invasion.

They’re all dead, and everything is green. It doesn’t make any fucking sense, because the first time you’d dealt with your own dead body you’d stared at your bright red blood for a long time, but when you look down at the shredded bodies of your friends all around you they all bleed green, human or troll. Sightless eyes, the too-familiar scent of blood, the awareness of something approaching and then there it is, rolling its whirling technicolour eyes towards you, green fangs flashing, green claws reaching. It’s the end of time and the death of the universe and a giant fucking monster is crashing down upon you. You feel a sword slam between your ribs, rip through your back, the pain is unbearable, but all you can see is the face of the wolf snarling at you as green clouds your vision and the taste of blood and bile in your throat is overwhelming and you can’t fucking _breathe_ —

You wake with a gasping cry and are immediately disoriented. It takes you a moment to do anything but flail wildly, trapped in the blankets as you are. You’re not in your room; of course not, because you’re visiting Rose. This is a guest room in Lalonde’s giant fuck-off mansion in the Catskills where your ecto-slime-sister and pseudo-ecto-slime-moms live. It is exactly one-oh-seven a.m. on a Saturday, New York time, and the rushing in your ears is a combination of your heartbeat and the waterfall outside, not a snarling green monstrosity racing across space and time to murder you.

The memory of the dream triggers shudders all down your spine, and suddenly the room is too big, too open. Fuck, _anything_ could sneak up on you in here. You feel the choking, acidic tightness rise in your throat and burn in your chest and your head swims and the room spins and you jump out of the bed and half-collapse into the corner, keeping your back tight to the wall. The corner is good, because you can keep an eye on the whole room and the door and the window and no one can sneak up behind you and kill you because that is what always happens. Your chest is burning and it’s hard to breathe, but you are not hyperventilating, you are not shaking, and you are definitely not fucking crying. You are obviously having some kind of asthmatic heartburn episode, despite having had neither of those things ever before this moment. This is not a panic attack. You are not having a panic attack over a fucking bad dream; you are keeping a perfectly normal tactical watch over the Lalonde family’s guest bedroom.

You are _so_ having a panic attack.

You jump a mile when you hear a tap on the door, and you pray that the little whine you hear doesn’t come from your throat but the slowly swinging hinges.

“Dave? Thought I heard you yell. Y’okay?” 

You aren’t sure if you should be disappointed or relieved that it’s Roxy and not Rose. 

You try and say something cool, like “I’m just casing this joint for other-dimensional horrors and not panicking at all, you go back to bed, I got this”, but what comes out instead is a hideously uncool sob. For some reason concerned by this response, Roxy starts toward you, but you flinch away from her so badly that your shoulder collides painfully with the wall, and she freezes just short of touching you. Fuck. You feel like you’re going to die. ( _Again_ , your traitorous brain reminds you, which just makes it fucking worse.)

She makes a soft, sad sound that might be your name and sits down across from you, back against the bed frame. She doesn’t say anything, just makes soothing noises when your shuddering and gasping get a shade too frantic. You become aware that her breathing is loud and deliberate, slow, calming, in and out, and find yourself latching on to the sound, mimicking it, before you even realize what she’s trying to do. Once she’s sure you’re following along, she starts to stand.

“Keep breathin’ like that, ‘kay? Be right back, I promise.”

You try not to dissolve back into short, panicky breaths and focus on her footsteps in the hall. She’ll be right back. She _will_.

And then she is, with two handheld games and some boxes cradled in her arms. Even in the darkness and your panic-addled state, you manage to identify them as part of Roxy’s collection of “the nintendos”. 

“Hey. I’m back, see? Jus’ like I said.” She motions gently at the floor. “It cool if I sit next to you?” You don’t uncurl from your tight little corner-ball, but you find yourself okay enough to accept someone invading your space. You manage a nod, since your throat is still clenched tight against anything more than your determinedly calm breathing. She slowly settles in close, enough so that your shoulders bump together, and puts a game system on your knees. 

“I got Mario Kart, but that shit’s friggen’ stressful, so we’re gonna start with Animal Crossing, ‘kay?” You attempt something maybe bearing a passing resemblance to a smile. It makes her look less worried, though, so that’s probably enough.

The light from the system blinds you a bit, and there’s a sudden self-conscious rush where you scrub your arm quickly across your eyes and look anxiously over at your shades on the bedside table, but Roxy leans her head on your shoulder, directing your attention to the game. 

“I tried to get Di-Stri to play this with me, but he kept resettin’ when he didn’t getta horse villager. The one he finally got moved to my town an’ that was the last fuckin’ straw.” You manage a snicker. Your breathing is coming a little easier, and your shoulders aren’t as tight, and Roxy’s effortless warmth and general enthusiasm are very distracting. You don’t really mind the villagers, but you do restart Can Town until its starting fruit is apples. It makes Roxy laugh and something gets a little closer to untangling in your chest. She turns on her own game and has you go over to her town (“Your town is gonna be super boring for like, three days. My town is hella rad, so get yer butt over here instead.”), where you play stupid minigames and catch fish and bugs and steal a bunch of her stuff.

At some point you run out of things to do, and also battery life, so Roxy makes a quick trip back to her room for charge cables while you fire up Mario Kart, having been deemed calm enough to do so. And you _do_ feel calmer, even though Roxy is right and Mario Kart is stressful as hell. You’re actually doing okay. You don’t really remember when your head stopped spinning and your chest stopped burning and the vice grip left your throat. You aren’t even shaking anymore. You’ve not only calmed down, you’re completely relaxed. 

At least until Rose slams the door open violently and you jump.

“Strider, do you have _any_ idea as to what constitutes decent guest behaviour, or—” She stops cold. You realize, belatedly, that it is six thirty-two a.m. (Saturday, New York time), the sun is up, and you have been sprawled across the floor with Roxy instead of huddled against the wall for the better part of two hours. In fact, the two of you have been bickering (apparently pretty loudly) about blue shells and the finer points of what constitutes fair play for a while now. You are keenly aware that your shades are still on the bedside table, but the look Rose is giving you is entirely worth being caught without. She’s torn somewhere between being annoyed at being awake so early and genuinely confused by what she’s seeing. You may actually have Rose Lalonde at a loss for words. It’s a glorious day for ecto-slime-brothers everywhere.

Roxy recovers first. “Mornin’, Rosie. You wanna turn?” She proffers the handheld cheerfully. Rose blinks before attempting to compose herself. She glances at you, and her razor sharp gaze softens, and you know in an instant that she can see right fucking through you, shades be damned. Stupid Seers.

“No, Roxy, that’s fine, thank you. I’m afraid the Nintendos are rather outside of my skill set. I’d just like to suggest that you perhaps keep your voices down, because in the unlikely event that the entirety of upstate New York hasn’t been rudely shaken awake at this ungodly hour, I believe that our mother is still asleep.”

In a true speak-of-the-Devil moment, Mom-Lalonde picks that exact instant to poke her head around the door frame, all lab coat and good cheer.

“Mornin’, all! I thought I heard your voices. Hope you’re feeling like pancakes! See you in the kitchen!” And then she’s gone. 

Caught flat-footed twice in as many minutes, Rose just puts her face in her hands; even so, there’s warmth in her long-suffering sigh. 

Roxy grins. “Woo, pancakes!” And Rose can’t help smiling at that. 

Rolling her eyes, she shrugs and quits the room with an exaggerated bow, nightgown flaring as she spins on her heel to go and prepare for breakfast. You’d almost forgotten how goofy she can be when she can’t muster up the fucks needed to be aloof.

The thought of a breakfast not involving horses, robots, or swords is pretty tempting (you’ll have to see how you feel about wizards), and you’re not one to pass up free food and annoying Rose at the same time, so you figure she has the right idea. But before you can move to grab your shades, Roxy grabs your hand. She checks over her shoulder, making sure Rose is gone, and then turns to face you, looking actually pretty serious. 

“Dave, are you doin’ okay?”

As much as you want to laugh it off and subsequently never speak of it again, you probably scared the hell out of her when she found you earlier. And she did help you a fuck of a lot. So you give her the most honest answer you can: a tight smile and a shrug.

She gives you a sad little smile in return, but there’s understanding there, too, and she takes a deep breath. “It really sucked, seeing you like that, y’know?” Boy, do you. “And if it happens a lot, I really wanna help. It’d be nice to do other stuff, though. Maybe like… family stuff? I thought, y’know, I could be your big sister. Like I’m tryin’ to for Rosie.” 

You blank.

You really haven’t thought much about family before. You had Bro, and then you found out that you also had Rose (ecto-biologically speaking), and then you found out what a shitty excuse for family Bro actually was. Your relationship with each of them is fairly straightforward: Bro is Bro. Unrelenting, untouchable, and you’re still unable to think about him without being hurt or angry or both. You and Rose antagonize each other as much as you bolster each other. There’s a bond there that neither of you are a hundred percent sure what to do with yet, but damn if you both aren’t trying. She’s been a blessed constant for you, though, from the game to the Green Sun to the meteor and beyond, and you’d never tell her, but you appreciate the fuck out of her for it. (She probably knows. Stupid Seers.)

You also sort of have Dirk now. He manages to give advice in a way Bro never bothered with, and you’d be lying if you said having someone around with less inclination to terrorize you, who’s more willing to just hang out, to _ask_ if you feel like strifing, didn’t make you feel pretty fucking good. Dirk reminds you of when you were little and still thought Bro was the coolest person in the word. He makes you feel like you actually have a big brother again. 

But musings of game-bound teen-moms aside, you really haven’t thought too hard about how you might have Roxy and Mom-Lalonde, too. So seeing Roxy smiling uncertainly here in front of you, offering something familial that doesn’t involve strifing or snark or psychoanalytical bullshit, something that maybe involves comfort and caring and a lot more like what you did last night, you can feel your throat closing up with something entirely unlike panic. A big sister actually sounds pretty fucking great.

Your fucking shades are still over on the damn table, so you know she can see everything written on your stupid face, and the fact that your eyes are totally _not_ getting misty, god fucking dammit. She opens her mouth, and you don’t know if she’s planning to elaborate or maybe even rescind the offer, so you grab her hands and just squeeze them between yours. You are painfully out of your depth with this, and it’s all you can think of to do, so you look down at your hands and avoid her eyes and wait.

You start a little when she shifts her posture suddenly, and the huge grin and the hug that damn near knocks you back into the wall aren’t the follow up you were expecting. She’s like a head shorter than you, but she’s thrown her arms around your neck and you’re coolkid-slouching (definitely not hunching in on yourself), so your head actually fits pretty well against her shoulder. She’s giggling like a madwoman into your ear, but you’re feeling a bit giddy yourself, so you can’t even think up something cool and ironic to say about it. Eventually, she pulls away, grinning. You figure that if she isn’t going to mention your bullshit crying, you aren’t going to mention hers.

“A’right, Davey! We need to get our officially-family butts downstairs! Pancakes await!” She strikes a dramatic pose while she waits patiently for you to put your shades back on, for your poker face to settle, before she grabs your hand and drags you out the door at top speed.

In the kitchen, Mom-Lalonde is already busy at the stove, and Roxy cheerfully shoves you down onto the couch and goes to help. Rose waves a bit sleepily at you from where she’s curled up with her laptop, and she barely twitches when Mom-Lalonde leans over her to ask about juice. “What’s your poison, Dave?” 

“‘AJ’, right, oh brother of mine?” For a moment, you think maybe Rose overheard your conversation with Roxy; but she isn’t giving you any pointedly-raised eyebrows or deeply probing psychology-looks. She’s just smirking at you like she usually does when you’re in the same room. Huh.

“But of course, sister dearest, Light of my life. You know me so well. Truly, this was meant to be.” You can’t quite manage your usual deadpan, but it still makes her laugh a bit, and she tosses a throw pillow at you. You toss it back, feeling a bit more on-point.

You’re about to get up to go grab your own breakfast, when Mom-Lalonde and Roxy come around and set a bunch of plates around the coffee table. It’s awkward, because you aren’t used to not fending for yourself. It’s still hells of early, and this woman you barely know has happily made you breakfast after you had a nightmare, whether she knows it or not. 

Is. Is that what moms do…? 

You’re uncharacteristically meek, not cool in the slightest, as you accept your glass of apple juice. You adjust your shades and mutter something vaguely apologetic about the time and the food and the freeloading, but Mom-Lalonde waves you off, grinning, as she loads your plate with pancakes. “You’re not putting anyone out by being here, Dave. Maybe try and drag Dirk along next time. Family’s always welcome, you know?” And she smiles like it’s no big deal.

You’re at a loss for words again. You know that Rose notices you swallow too hard when Mom-Lalonde pats you gently on the shoulder, but instead of the smirk you were expecting, she gives you probably the warmest smile you’ve ever seen her wear, like she gets exactly how you feel. Hell, she probably does. Definitely.

Sitting there in the living room, at seven in the goddamn morning on a Saturday (New York time), eating pancakes and shooting the shit with _your family_ , your nightmares couldn’t be further away.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest, I've actually had this mostly done for months, though I've been too busy to finish and post it. I recently had some lovely comments on my past fics, and what with the end of Homestuck, I figured I should really get to finishing my works in progress. I'm not completely comfortable writing Rose or Roxy yet, so I hope they came across well.
> 
> This is a sort of variant of the "everyone lives" AU, hence Mom Lalonde being alive. I've got some other fics in the works to expand on this, but basically when they won, a number of factors "reset", such as people who were alive pre-game coming back. It's the same reason that Bec is present and separate from Jade in "Just the Facts", as well as the trolls like Feferi being alive.


End file.
